Two students from Los Angeles County and one from Orange County advanced to the third round of the Scripps National Spelling Bee Tuesday in National Harbor, Maryland.
Oliver Halkett, Kamya Balaji and Sydney Tran each spelled a word in the first round and correctly answered a vocabulary question in the second at the Gaylord National Resort & Convention Center.
The three spellers then took a written test, the results of which have not been released. The scores from the written test will determine who will advance to Wednesday’s quarterfinals.
Under bee rules, spellers will be grouped by their number of correct answers. The number of spellers to advance will be determined by identifying the group whose minimum score results in as close to 100 quarterfinalists as possible.
Oliver spelled becquerel — a unit of radioactivity of a given sample of material equal to one atomic decay. His vocabulary question was “Something described as toilsome is” and he chose, “characterized by tiring work.”
Kamya spelled contretemps — an inopportune or embarrassing occurrence or situation. Her vocabulary question was, “What does it mean to truncate?” and she choose, “Make something shorter by cutting.”
Sydney spelled Merak, a blue star of the second magnitude that is seen in the constellation Ursa Major and forms part of the base of the Big Dipper. Her vocabulary question was, “If a plan goes awry, it” and she chose “goes wrong.”
Oliver is competing in the national bee for the second consecutive year. He reached the fourth round and was among 89 spellers tying for 60th in 2024.
The seventh grader at The Mirman School in Brentwood qualified for the national bee by winning the Los Angeles County Regional Spelling Bee in April, correctly spelling diazepam, a drug sold under the brand name Valium, to end the 16-round competition.
The 13-year-old’s favorite activities include playing piano, learning Mandarin and Latin, playing soccer and reading and particularly likes to learn about current events and history, according to biographical information supplied by bee organizers.
Oliver’s favorite movies are “Gladiator” and “A Beautiful Mind,” and one of his favorite television shows is “The West Wing.” He hopes to become a governmental official, ideally Secretary of State.
Kamya advanced to the national bee by finishing second in the Los Angeles County bee, misspelling mollisol, a soil type which has deep, high organic matter.
The sixth grader at Notre Dame Academy in Rancho Park loves reading, writing stories and poetry, doing science experiments, playing the piano and making art. She is most proud of her first published novel, “Kingdoms in the Shadows: A Tale of Mystery, War, and Betrayal,” which she co-authored with her sister.
In her free time, the 12-year-old enjoys brainstorming new story ideas, doing puzzles and playing strategy games.
Sydney qualified for the national bee by winning the Orange County Spelling Bee in March, correctly spelling obsecration, a supplicatory prayer mentioning in its appeal things or events considered sacred as the final word.
The seventh-grader at El Rancho Charter School in Anaheim plays violin in her school’s advanced orchestra. The 13-year-old also plays tennis and volunteers for Serving Advantage, a youth-led, nonprofit program for adaptive tennis.
The bee began with a field of 243 spellers from all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Department of Defense schools and five nations outside the United States — the Bahamas, Canada, Ghana, Kuwait and Nigeria.
There were 42 spellers eliminated in the first round and 18 in the second, reducing the field to 165.
The bee is limited to students in eighth grade or below and who were born on Sept. 1, 2009 or later.
The bee will conclude on hursday. The winner will receive $50,000 from the Scripps National Spelling Bee, $2,500 and a reference library from the dictionary publisher Merriam-Webster, $400 in reference works from Encyclopedia Britannica including a 1768 Encyclopedia Britannica replica set and a three-year membership to Britannica Online Premium.
This is the 100th anniversary of the first national spelling bee which was on June 17, 1925, when the Louisville Courier-Journal invited other newspapers around the country to hold spelling bees and send their champions to Washington, D.C.
This is the 97th edition of the bee. There were no bees in 1943, 1944 and 1945 because of World War II and in 2020 because of the coronavirus pandemic.
No speller from Los Angeles or Orange counties has won the bee.